This application is based on and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119 with respect to Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-180320 filed on Jun. 15, 2000, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention is generally directed to a vehicle door latch. More particularly, the present invention pertains to a vehicular door latch operation control device which includes a latch release actuator for operating a vehicular door latch mechanism.
A known vehicular door latch operation control device is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2657876. This known device includes a latch release actuator driving a latch mechanism which holds the door relative to a vehicle body so as to allow the door to be opened, a trigger mechanism for turning on and off the latch release actuator, and a controller for controlling operation of the latch release actuator on the basis of an operation signal issued from the trigger mechanism.
The controller has a lock/unlock setting portion for establishing an unlock state and a lock state which respectively allow and inhibit the latch release actuator to operate. Irrespective of inside or outside the vehicle, when the lock state is established by the lock/unlock setting portion, even upon input of the signal from the trigger mechanism, the latch release actuator fails to operate. Only when the unlock state is established by the lock/unlock setting portion, the controller causes the latch release actuator to operate when the signal from the trigger mechanism is inputted to the controller.
However, each of the lock state and the unlock state established by the lock/unlock setting portion of the controller provides a sole mode in the inside or the outside of the vehicle body. This results in limited versatility in door design specification.
More specifically, a driver seat side door is normally designed to have a so-called xe2x80x9cone motion open functionxe2x80x9d which allows the driver seat side door to open in such a manner that the driver seat side door even in the locked state is transferred to the unlocked state by manipulating the trigger mechanism from inside the vehicle. In addition, the rear seat side door is oftentimes a so-called xe2x80x9cchild-proof lock functionxe2x80x9d so that the rear seat side door cannot open if the trigger mechanism is manipulated from inside the vehicle even when the rear side seat door is in the unlock state. However, it is oftentimes difficult to realize that the specification of the known device has the aforementioned functions.
A need thus exists to expand the versatility in door function specification.
The present invention provides a vehicular door latch operation control device having a latch release actuator driving a latch mechanism which holds the door relative to a vehicle body so as to allow the door to be opened, a trigger mechanism for turning on and off the latch release actuator, and a controller controlling operation of the latch release actuator on the basis of an operation signal issued from the trigger mechanism. The controller is provided with a lock/unlock setting portion which independently establishes the lock and unlock states at each of the inside and outside of the vehicle.
In accordance with the present invention, the inside and the outside of the vehicle is capable of being provided with its own unlock and lock states which are established by the lock/unlock portion of the controller in response to the signal from the trigger mechanism and which allow and inhibit, respectively, the latch release actuator to operate. Thus, the present invention can provide one or more of a variety of functions, including xe2x80x9cone motion open function, xe2x80x9cchild-proof lock functionxe2x80x9d and others, to each of the vehicle doors even if the design specifications of the vehicle doors differ.
Preferably, the vehicle door latch operation control device is desired to have a memory in which a program for establishing the lock and unlock states is stored.
In accordance with the present invention, a vehicle door latch operation control device includes a latch release actuator operable to drive a latch mechanism which holds a door of a vehicle relative to a body of the vehicle to move the latch mechanism to a position allowing the door to be opened, a driving circuit for operating the latch release actuator, a mechanism for issuing an operation signal to turn the latch release actuator on or off, and a controller that controls operation of the driving circuit to operate the latch release actuator based on the operation signal issued from the mechanism to establish a lock state and an unlock state at an inside of the vehicle while also independently establishing the lock state and the unlock state at an outside of the vehicle